


Baying for Blood

by Just_Another_Day



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drama, Gen, Gladiators, Parallels, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-05 23:04:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18838606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Just_Another_Day/pseuds/Just_Another_Day
Summary: For all that the crowds might make up tales of deadly rivalries for added entertainment, the fighters had no real reason to actually want to kill each other. Normally.





	Baying for Blood

**Author's Note:**

> I could try to give a detailed backstory for this, since it was once meant to be a much longer fic. But nah. I think there's enough information in the fic for you to get the gist. If you feel otherwise, let me know and I can go further into it.
> 
> Honestly, though, what do you really need to know other than that Laurent's got murder on his mind and Damen is oblivious. :D

The new fighter had at first glance looked painfully green, with that perfect skin that bore none of the usual scars that came from real fighting experience. Damen had doubted that he would even survive a single bout in the ring. Which would have been a crying shame, Damen couldn't help but think. Had they been in Akielos instead, a young man who looked like that would never have been wasted like this, relegated to the colosseum. He would without a doubt have instead lived in pampered comfort as the prize pick of the royal bed slaves.

He would have been _Damen's_ slave, in fact. Once. In a very different life.

But then Damen had watched him thoroughly trounce an opponent twice his size. The audience reaction to that first victory had been muted bordering on hostile, probably because most of them had made the same mistaken assumption as Damen and had accordingly bet that he would lose. Their smattering of applause for the unexpected victor was grudging.

In an arena where one's fate could end up being ruled by popularity with the audience, that was something of an inauspicious beginning. Not that the young man seemed, as he surveyed the crowd, to actually care.

The newcomer did, at least, quickly become a favourite among the other fighters, despite obviously (or it was obvious to Damen, anyway) holding himself almost as aloof from them as from the audience. It probably helped that, unlike Damen, he'd arrived understanding and speaking enough of the regional dialects spoken by most of the fighters to be able to immediately communicate with them, despite clearly not being a local himself.

Based on the visual clues alone, Damen would have picked him out as being Kemptian. However, Damen heard enough tongues trip over the pronunciation of the name 'Laurent' in those first few days after his arrival to indicate that the man was more likely Veretian. Though when Damen approached him to try to start a conversation utilising his own fluent Veretian language skills, he'd been met with nothing but a derisive glare, so it was hard to be entirely certain. 

Damen's attempt to wish Laurent good luck just before they finally faced each other in the ring for the first time went even worse.

"With any luck at all, you'll be dead in a few minutes," was Laurent's reply in crisp Veretian.

Damen would admit to being taken aback by that. It was one thing to see other fighters as competitors rather than friends, but quite another to wish death upon them. Fatalities in the ring weren't rare, but they were usually either an accident or were relatively inescapable because the crowd was demanding it. It wasn't personal. Not usually.

Laurent's words sounded _very_ personal, for some reason.

Damen took the underlying threat seriously. By now, Damen had seen all the proof he needed to ascertain that Laurent wasn't to be underestimated. At the same time, he'd never seen Laurent act so utterly vicious towards any of his previous opponents. He didn't appear at all afraid to draw Damen's blood. Every swing or jab seemed carefully deliberated to do serious damage. The slightest falter in Damen's step would have resulted in a shaft of steel buried deep inside his chest, or with his throat being slashed open by the sword's sharp edge. Damen had the disturbing impression that he might have finally seen Laurent's lips curve into a smile if that happened.

Damen wasn't about to make that kind of mistake, though. So he wasn't the one whose back ultimately hit the sawdust, accompanied by the cacophony of the audience's mixed cheers and jeering.

Frustration and perhaps even surprise at being so soundly beaten despite his admittedly advanced proficiency with a blade seemed to slow Laurent's otherwise quick reflexes just enough that he didn't quite manage to roll away and right himself before Damen could restrain him. Not that he probably could have hoped to defend himself against Damen without his sword in his hand anyway. 

Damen's elbow ground down into Laurent's chest, holding him firmly in place and probably forcing some of the breath from his lungs. Not that that seemed to deter Laurent. After Laurent tried to resort to biting Damen's wrist, Damen roughly pressed the side of Laurent's face into the ground almost hard enough to leave scrapes across the otherwise unspoiled line of his sculpted cheekbone.

'You're beaten,' Damen thought in Laurent's direction, willing Laurent to just realise as much. If Laurent wasn't smart about it, the crowd could easily get worked up into a frenzy about his dogged refusal to concede and would start baying for the fight to end in blood. And then Laurent would be the one who concluded the fight dead as well as defeated. So even though he knew that Laurent wouldn't have afforded him the same choice, Damen still wished that Laurent would just declare a yield to save himself. Laurent's stubborn expression clearly announced: never.

Thankfully, it wasn't actually left up to Laurent this time. Damen had Laurent so thoroughly pinned that the fight was declared Damen's victory even without waiting for Laurent's opinion on the matter. 

It was very clear, as Damen pushed himself up and away from Laurent, that Laurent was bitter that the fight had ended that way. Laurent hadn't cared about his other fights like that, from what Damen had seen. Had it not been for the way their face-off had begun, Damen would have just concluded that Laurent was sore over his first and so far only loss. But Laurent proved that Damen was right to doubt that when he declared, "Next time I'll stain the sand with your blood."

No, he wouldn't. Damen didn't think he was being unduly arrogant in thinking that. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate Laurent's abilities. But for all that Laurent was far more competent than Damen's first impression would have suggested, Damen was still better. He could beat Laurent again, and again, as often as necessary. If Laurent really did want to kill him, he would have no choice but to learn to live with disappointment.

"Why do you hate me that much?" Damen asked later. "You haven't shown any particular dislike for any of the other fighters."

"I don't owe you an explanation," Laurent snapped. "But since you're obviously too much of a brainless barbarian to grasp it on your own: you're a trained Akielon fighter who's old enough, I'd wager, to have fought on the hills of Sanpelier, or the plains of Marlas. Don't even try to claim you haven't killed my people by the dozen. Why wouldn't I hate you and want you dead?"

Damen couldn't say much in response to that, except to point out that Laurent's people had killed Akielons as well, which he knew would hardly help things. Even years in the ring didn't compare to just days on the battlefield. Thousands of bodies had littered the ground by the end of each of the clashes that Laurent had mentioned. And he was right that Damen had been responsible for his fair share of those deaths. 

The disquiet of realisation hit Damen. "You lost someone there."

"I lost _everything_ there."

So had Damen, really. He'd lost his brother when Kastor had taken his apparently long-awaited chance to remove Damen from his path to the throne, knowing that in the chaos of everything happening at Marlas Damen would be presumed to have died in the melee. He'd lost his father as well, for the only information Damen had managed to glean about the happenings in Akielos had suggested that Kastor now wore what Damen still considered to be their father's crown. And he'd lost his entire country, for Damen was now over a thousand miles away from Akielon soil and knew there was a very real chance that he might never cross that distance again. So Damen understood loss better than most. He also understood the anger that came along with it.

Damen said none of that. He doubted that Laurent would have appreciated Damen trying to commiserate with him that way.

But Damen couldn't really help but point out: "Not everything."

For that was exactly what Damen had been telling himself all this time as well.


End file.
